Atheists, what if you were not being asked to believe in God or in revealed scripture,....?

but instead you were merely asked to curtail your illicit behavior that is not in keeping with scriptural instruction. Would you accept to adhere to the rules of behavior illustrated in scripture in order to meet your obligations to the society in which you live...and thrive?

Update: @ Pearlmar...thats good, so you are adhering to the obligations. good for you.

Update 2: Many answers state you are not into illicit drugs or sexual behavior...thats fine...great...keep adhering to that. Hopefully one day you will believe and that will make your adherence make sense.

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Best Answer: What sort of illicit behaviour do you imagine that I'm getting up to?
I do nothing illegal, wrong or anything to annoy or upset anyone.
I don't break the law, drink heavily, take drugs, etc.
Do explain exactly what you think it is that we do!

1. Illicit means illegal, child. I don't do anything illegal. Perhaps you need to learn the English language a bit better, or choose your words with greater care.

2. Why would I choose to follow "instructions" contained in a badly=-edited compilation book of primitive middle eastern fairy tales? I mean, if I was going to follow fairy tale instructions, why would I not choose something from among my ethnic group, or something from cultures close to where I live? Why would I choose this one belief's fairy tales?

Like the OT instructions (you know, the ones about stoning women for teaching men and things like that)? The Sharia? Or maybe the Hinduist rules? What about Jainism?

I don't see any reason why I would follow what I consider to be ancient man made rules, that are mostly pointless, sometimes stupid, and often immoral, just because someone else believes very hard that they come from a divine being.

The father in the article below is a devout Christian who used the Bible as justification for himself and his son to rape his daughter. I am not saying that I agree with his interpretation of the Bible, but if the BIble is so unclear that someone can use it to justify such a horrible act... then it isn't much of a book when it comes to morality and human decency.

I prefer we establish laws based on concepts like human rights, the 'golden rule', and protecting our world and our society.

The Bible is none of those.

You claim that adherence fo the Bible is required for a society to thrive. I would suggest history says the opposite. The nearly 1000 years when Christianity was the dominant force in Europe are collectively called "the DARK ages" because they were times with poor literacy, wars, oppression, and social inequality. The advances in our society of the last 600 years were from the rise in humanism, starting in the Renaissance, and continuing through the Age of Reason and now the Age of Information. In each case, it was the lessening of the influence of religion that allowed these advances to occur.

Even today, if you look at the areas of the world, and even within the USA, with the highest social unrest with correlate with higher religious involvement. Areas like rural Kentucky and Missouri that have close to 100% self identified Christians have the highest per capita rates of drug abuse, spousal abuse, and violent crimes.

Kid, if you have "substantial" evidence supporting your god thingie, lay it out - but be aware that the way you feel when you look at puppies or sunsets, or conversations you had with yourself, or your inability to explain something any other way do not constitute evidence.

Understand that:

Dreams are not evidence.
Wishful thinking is not evidence.
Logical fallacies are not evidence.
Personal revelation is not evidence.
Illogical conclusions are not evidence.
Disproved statements are not evidence.
Unsubstantiated claims are not evidence.
Hallucinations/delusions are not evidence.
Information that is ambiguous is not evidence.
The Universe doesn't care what you believe in.
Data that requires a certain belief is not evidence.
Information that cannot be verified is not evidence.
Information that cannot be falsified is not evidence.
Experiments with inconclusive results are not evidence.
Information that is only knowable by a privileged few is not evidence.
Experiments that are not and cannot be duplicated by others are not evidence.
The wonderful thing about science is that it doesn't ask for your faith, only your eyes.

If God is so smart, why can't he convince atheists that he exists?
Hypothesis: God doesn't exist.
Hey, that works perfectly!
It explains all the data.
First try too... 😎
~

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Atheists, what if you were not being asked to believe in God or in revealed scripture,....?

but instead you were merely asked to curtail your illicit behavior that is not in keeping with scriptural instruction. Would you accept to adhere to the rules of behavior illustrated in scripture in order to meet your obligations to the society in which you live...and thrive?